The inaugural Cup Series race in Mexico City will undoubtedly be a fascinating affair, but how will the top drivers perform as they take on the track for the first time? According to multiple drivers, the series see some carnage in multiple sections, starting with Turn 1.
The reason Turn 1 stands out is that they will build up speed down a long, straight stretch before hitting a sharp right turn.
"I've been doing a lot of SIM lately and it's pretty cool, a challenging and big track," Shane van Gisbergen said. "There are lots of technical sections and it's going to be very difficult.
"Turn 1 is going to be carnage, I think, with how NASCAR restarts are. It's going to be nuts, but I'm looking forward to some right handers this weekend."
here is a lap of the autodromo hermanos rodriguez but overdriven 🤪
shoutout https://t.co/vYiRp2GefB pic.twitter.com/4dRgOYJgdG
— bread perez (@bradxperez) June 9, 2025
A sharp turn after a long straight is nothing out of the ordinary for NASCAR's national series competitors. This is something they faced during the first three trips to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
The drivers would barrel up the hill after taking the green flag and then they would enter a tight, left turn. Many drivers used this as an opportunity to attempt divebombs, which created chaos and carnage. The 2023 Cup Series race, in particular, had three messy attempts at overtime.
NASCAR responded by moving the restart zone for 2024 and '25. This spread the field out more as it entered Turn 1. Dive bombs still happened, but both races still played out more calmly.
Time will tell if drivers make as aggressive moves into Turn 1 at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, but this is not the only area that is ripe for potential carnage. As multiple drivers said last weekend at Michigan, the track features multiple passing zones. This includes a stadium section where drivers could become even more aggressive.
My colleague @mwc13_3 does weekly track breakdowns for F1 races. She helped me borrow the concept to do our first NASCAR track breakdown here (and thanks to our design team for the cool graphic!): https://t.co/rw0moRTyPL pic.twitter.com/RfOtic5xQl
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) June 10, 2025
"I think it will race really well, honestly," Ryan Blaney said. "I think there's a lot of passing zones ,obviously, into Turn 1. Down the long frontstretch is gonna be one. Into Turn 4.
"There's like a flowy esses section that I don't know if you'll see a lot of passing there, just as a normal ess carrying speed, but then there's another braking zone into the stadium, that right-hander that I think you're gonna see some moves. And then in the stadium there's a really, really tight left-hander.
"It's super tight and it requires a big arc to run it properly, but you're gonna have guys kind of short cut it and dive in there, almost like the new Roval turn. It's kind of set up like that with that angle to me, where you saw a lot of guys short it and send it in there."
Erik Jones agreed with Blaney, saying, "There's some really high speed stuff, some really slow stuff in that stadium section is like 30 mph. So, there's going to probably be some chaos down there."
Ultimately, these concerns about chaos could be overblown. The Xfinity Series and Cup Series races could be calm events with strategic passes instead of aggressive dive bombs. Whether this happens depends on the level of respect drivers show each other when a win is on the line.